Turkish Airlines orders more than 100 Airbus narrowbodies

Turkish Airlines has signed a contract for up to 117 A320 family aircraft, including 25 A321ceos, four A320neo, 53 A321neos and options for 35 additional A321neos.

It is the largest ever placed by a Turkish carrier.

Turkish Airlines already operates 75 A320 family aircraft. Turkish Airlines said the new order will allow it to expand short to medium-haul routes from its Istanbul hub, while the aircraft’s commonality with their existing Airbus fleet will generate additional cost-savings.

The A320neo will enter into service from late 2015, followed by the A319neo and A321neo in 2016, Turkish said.

In February, the carrier ordered five more Airbus A330-300s on top of the 15 A330-300s it ordered in October. And in December Turkish firmed a commitment for 15 Boeing 777-300ERs plus five options.

An engine selection for the new Airbus narrowbodies will be made later, the carrier said.

And Turkish Airlines (like USAir, for example & Lufthansa) are doing very good, probing analyses, before finalising their choices.

You see, the NEO, despite all the huffing & puffing, are not going to give "blanket" >15% improvement in fuel-burn efficiency. That is highly exaggerated.
The reatively old-hat air-frame technology is simply incapable of drawing out the quintessence of the engines, which, in turn, despite their “new generation modernity” simply cannot be "optimised" for these prior-generation airframes.

RR's arguments will be proved so right a few years down the road. Despite the fabulous order- of Airbus & Boeing on their respective NEO & MAX families, these aircraft merely delay the bringing-to-market of the truly requisite air-frame technology.

True quality of this NEO distraction is the in-rush of fresh treasury (new-order down-payments received), which, in Airbus’ Consolidated Treasury Management, is more than adequate to fund (with no recourse to disputed funding methods or alleged subsidies), the final development, cut-over into service, and production ramp-up of the Airbus A350-XWB, to meet the Clients' PUC needs for the fulfilment of their Business Plan Objectives. The Boeing anti-A350-XWB-financing bleatings to the WTO are flawed, unfounded & without credibility.

Boeing’s excellent CFO, James BELL, now retired, openly recognised that the Boeing MAX could NOT bring constant, sustainable fuel-burn efficiency gains of more the “single digit” values (i.e. below 10%). It will be the same on the Airbus-NEO.

Alleged AIRBUS net improvement of 4% fuel-burn efficiency by virtue of the adjunction of Sharklets is mainly theoretical, & almost an outright statistical fallacy. Sharklets will bring virtually no such gain versus to-day’s “wing-fences”.

For, to benefit from even the slightest, truly perceptible sharklet-induced fuel-burn efficiency gain, on a flight, the said flight’s flying time would need to be in excess of 2 hours. To attain the level of 4%, flying time would have to be between 3.50 hours an 4.00 hours. It is the same in principle for the P&W GTF & GE./ CFMI Leap Engines : the longer the effective flying time, the better the relative fuel-burn performance versus to-day’s current engines, on their current air-frames.

Note that, for all the shorter BOEING & AIRBUS single-aisle a/c, up to 90%-95% of all flights are reportedly of less than 2 hours, and up to about 85%-90%, are less than 75 minutes’ flying time. For the longer Boeing B737-NG’s, and the Airbus A321, only about 20% of the flights are over .1.75 hours.

This is why, for example, USAir, for domestic USA flights, (incl. USA transcontinental) has placed all recent new-orders for A321’s, in the configuration “Non NEO” (i.e. powered by IAE V2500 “Select One”), but equipped with Sharklets, owing to the “close-to-4-hours-of-flight” aspect. There is “cost-benefit spin-off”, in terms of Cost of Ownership (COO), and DOC. It is NOT always just a case of urgent PUC-needs and aircraft availability.

The same PRINCIPLES ring true & apply for the mix between ”CEO” (“Current Engine Option”) & NEO (“New Engine Option”) in the choices of LH & Turkish Airlines (and in the cases of other companies, too). Take a good look at Air Asia. Tony FERNANDEZ & his men really know what they are talking about in their analyses and choices.

Michael O-LEARY and his men at RYANAIR, too. The B737-MAX are no use to RYANAIR’s Business Case. Show us how many / what portion of RYANAIR’s flights do last more than 2.00 or 2.50 hours’ actual flying time.. Look at how many / what percentage last between 0;75 & 1.50 hours’ flying time !

Here is a reaction to various comments, made here & there, relative to France’s influence in this big Turkish Airlines order

Yes, reportedly, there were attempts at influence.

Als reportedly, a real issue is that USA's attempted influence was less effective than EU’s. Who knows ?

From persons with true inside track, and even many French media reports, France's reported attempts at influence were not brilliant, and may have been counterproductive.

Who honestly thinks that France’s alleged influence, in such trade matters with Turkey, gives much mileage? Who really thinks that Turkey’s leaders & deciders have forgotten that, only a few years ago, it was France that blocked the route to Turkey’s chances of admission to EU? Is there anyone who seriously thinks that they have “forgiven” France ?

Now, if one mentioned Germany ?

The more positive influence is said (whispered?) to have been that of Germany (just think of Turkey's real economic links with Turkey). And German’s are shrewd enough to know that one should seldom believe, or take at face value, much of the drivel one reads in the media ! Angela MERKEL could not give a damn when she reads that, on her trip to Turkey, all she received was the cold shoulder on Airbus business.

The facts suggest strongly that she is endowed with patience, and much subtlety.

She must have smiled inwardly, when she read all that rubbish in the newspapers and magazines. And she must have felt a warm, well-hidden glow of contentment, as soon as she heard the good newxs of this sizeable order !

Without wishing to be provocative or argumentative (that is not the intention), one honestly felt that there was a sort of Community Atmosphere building up through the Comments section of this site.

What is more, compared with many sites, there was a good-quality feel, thanks to the contributions, and, doubtless, too, to reasonable monitoring & moderation.

It is easy to understand that the Administrators have a need, a duty & a will to enhance the site, and to render it manageable, not just from the user-friendly angles, but also from a management stand-point.

However, it would appear that the relative difficulty, in transferring from the previous format to the new, is deterring many contributors from following and "rejoining".

That is regrettable.

Also, the manner in which the switch-over has been enacted (no criticism ; one appreciates that there may be some technical constraints, combined with a will to do some weeding-out, even of the contributions which had accumulated substantially & swiftly under certain topics) has caused, or appears to have caused some data-evaporation.

Articles and comments seem to have been lost. That, too, is somewhat regrettable. And it is not a question of nostalgia.

Might it be possible for the Site Administrators to consider how to facilitate & re-stimulate some subscriber-returns & growth, within the framework of what the "web" conventions allow ?

Rightly or wrongly, I do feel sure that I am not alone in having the above hankerings.

Please take no offence at this post. My thanks in advance for publishing it, if you decide to do so.

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